Someone once told me that life is full of irony. I realize that writing about travel in the midst of a pandemic, when travel has become difficult, severely limited and in many cases, not even possible, is just another example of exactly that: irony.
However, not being able to travel made me think about why the act of travel, whether physically travelling, or a trip taken from an armchair through a book or documentary can still offer us a unique perspective on being more mindful and subsequently achieving more in our daily lives.
There are components of mindful travel that we can apply, even when we’re not travelling anywhere, and three key elements recently came to mind.
3 key elements of travel
Stop procrastinating, get started and board
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
Departure points in travel and those moments (figuratively) in our lives can be motivators that make us more mindful, while also spurring us on to the next step on our own journey. Once we’ve arrived at a train station or an airport departure gate, the excuses or reasons why we couldn’t go or do something are suddenly gone. We have, in a sense, committed to the journey that is now waiting directly in front of us.
Generally, we’re at a point of no longer turning back when we arrive there, and we become more mindful of that sensation in that unique moment. The great thing, though, is that these moments represent an end to procrastination or hesitation about doing something new or setting off to a place where we may or may not have been before. This place can be a literal or figurative next step up a little higher on the ladder that is leading to your next journey.
Either way, we’re taking off on a new voyage, having suddenly become very mindful of that fact, and have decided to actually go through with it. Procrastination has come to an end. The act of being at the gate or waiting at the station represents a commitment to what’s next, and that’s exciting. We’re doing something now, instead of putting it, whatever “it” may be, off any longer.
What gates are you standing at where you could mindfully take the next step right now, board, and set off on that next journey that will take you to the next-level destination in your own life?
Take a broader view towards a current challenge
Travel takes us out of our familiar daily environment. We’re out of our comfort zone and in a larger and sometimes unfamiliar context. As a result, we start to see everything differently. We’re often more open and mindful because we’re adapting to a new experience or environment. It’s because of the unknown that we may have to approach circumstances differently than we would have back home or in a situation or place that is overly familiar to us.
Being more open can result in us taking a broader, more mindful and different view of challenges than that which we might have otherwise considered.
We can apply this same mindfulness experienced when travelling to challenges in our daily lives, and even at home in our regular environment. Both the real and imagined obstacles may begin to look different if viewed through a more mindful, broader or differing perspective. This viewpoint may be different than how we would have readily looked at the challenge from within our comfort zone.
Travel can give us a broader and different view of our own lives and circumstances. Maybe we can, at times, also try to take a broader, more open and different view of any current challenges that we face, and as a result, come up with creative and mindful solutions and ideas we might not have otherwise envisioned.
Taking a unique perspective may even end up turning what seemed like a challenge into an opportunity for us.
Begin a new adventure
“Jobs fill your pocket. Adventures fill your soul.” – Jaime Lyn Beatty
What “adventures” would make you feel even more motivated or alive if you set off on them? An adventure makes us feel alive, and maybe that’s part of the enchantment of travel as well. This can also apply to our daily lives, when we are doing something new that could lead us to somewhere different or to an experience or result we haven’t necessarily had before.
An adventure makes us feel alive, and maybe that’s part of the enchantment of travel as well.
Travel contains the inherent element of adventure, and we become mindful of that when we step outside our comfort zone to go on our next trip. We don’t have to leave home, though, to begin a new journey. There’s power in asking ourselves what would be an adventure in our own lives that could take us somewhere different, expand our awareness and outlook and take us somewhere that we want to be.
This could even be that next adventure that leads you on to the next place in your career, or to your next home, or the next club or organization that you’ve always thought would be interesting to take part in.
An adventure should help us feel more mindful about our surroundings and feel even more alive. However, for each of us, that journey is necessarily going to be different. Regardless of what an adventure looks like to each one of us, beginning a new one mindfully could offer up some exciting results and bring us all to a new level and place in our lives.
What would be an adventure that would motivate or inspire you right now, and help you feel even more mindful towards your own life? The question itself even contains an excitement in the asking that the actual action or adventure, when taken, can only build upon and enhance.
We must step outside our comfort zone
“Live with no excuses and travel with no regrets.” – Oscar Wilde
We don’t have to travel anywhere to apply some of the wonderful components that any form of travel, whether physically or figuratively, can offer us towards achieving even greater mindfulness in our own lives. Travel, at its best, encourages us to make the trip, to board the train, bus or flight and to procrastinate no more.
There’s always another departure gate waiting for us that can take us to that next level and make us more mindful. We just have to choose to walk through it and board.
Being outside of our comfort zone when we travel encourages us to think differently, to be more mindful and to look at everything, including our own circumstances, from a perspective that we might not have otherwise entertained while we were within our usual comfort zone.
As hard as it can be at times, sometimes taking a broader or different perspective, like that which we may encounter or experience when travelling, can be exactly the solution and strategy that we need to overcome challenges that had previously seemed invincible. We, in a sense, become more mindful by stepping outside of our comfort zones through the very action of travel.
Finally, and probably the most important takeaway is that we should set off on that new adventure that will make us feel even more alive and mindful and take us to that next level in our lives we’ve been striving for or dreaming about. I hope that in some small way, this article encourages each of you to take that next mindful journey in your own lives.
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image 1 Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay 2 Image by Joshua Woroniecki from Pixabay 3 Image by victoraf from Pixabay
